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Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Company
(BNSF) will pay $95,000 and furnish other relief to settle an age
discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC).
According to the EEOC’s suit, BNSF violated the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act (ADEA) when it failed to hire both Jimmy Rider and Randy
Aultman because of their age. At the time they submitted employment
applications to BNSF for maintenance-of-way positions in October 2005,
Rider and Aultman were ages 55 and 43, respectively. The EEOC filed suit
in July 2007, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of
Oklahoma (Case No. Civ-07-734-D), after first attempting to reach a
pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.
As part of the settlement, BNSF agreed to pay $75,000 to Rider and
$20,000 to Aultman in compensation for their lost wages. Additionally,
BNSF agreed for the next two years to provide on-site employment
discrimination training to the hiring panel managers in its Texas
Division whenever positions covered under the company’s collective
bargaining agreement are filled. BNSF’s Texas Division encompasses the
states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and parts of Kansas. Furthermore,
BNSF must report any and all complaints of age discrimination made by
its employees or applicants in Oklahoma to the EEOC Regional Attorney
during the same two-year time period.